Feature

1 in 7 Brits Admit to Being Valentine 'text-rats'

Networks & Network Services
One in seven people in Britain have admitted being guilty of sending 'sexy' or 'flirty' messages to someone other than their partner, according to a report from LogicaCMG, which shows the shocking extent of text-cheating across the world.
Following reports in the media that David Beckham has allegedly done it with his former PA. Shane Warne has been exposed doing it several times with nurses and glamour models the global study of more than 8,500 people shows Brits are amongst the biggest 'text rats' in the world, second only to Malaysians. Brits are also the most suspicious - seemingly with good reason - with one in six people checking their partner's phone for 'suspicious messages'.

Other findings of the international study include:

Guilty-text: Across the world, Malaysians are the most likely to have guilty-text, with nearly 40% of people sending flirty messages behind their partners' back.

Text-check: Germans are the most text-trusted, with barely 7% of people checking their partner's mobiles.

Text-flirting: Millions of 'Latin lover' Italian men use SMS as their primary tool for wooing lovers. One in ten relationships in Italy started with a text invitation for a first date, and nearly a third started with text-flirting.

Text ditching: Nearly one in ten Singaporeans have used SMS to break up with someone. Germans are the least likely to be text-ditched, while 3% of Brits have been dumped in this way.

SMSweetheart: Men in the Philippines have the easiest Valentine's Day, with more than a third of women preferring a romantic text message to chocolates or a card. Rasputin-style Russian passion seems to have evolved during the past century, with 40% of Russians making do with a text message on Valentine's Day.

Commenting on the findings, Jayne Chace, chief marketing officer, LogicaCMG telecoms said "We deliver more than half of the world's text messages and therefore understand the depth of emotion tied up with sending and receiving just a few characters of text. The reaction people have when their phone beeps to signal an incoming message resonates deeply within them, and this brings out the best and worst in people, as we can see in this report."

"It is clear that wherever you go in the world, texting has become a primary tool for people to get into, and out of, relationships - sometimes without even meaning to," Jayne Chace added.